Sharpe's Parody
by FuchsiaII
Summary: The Duke of Wellington's camp, ' said Harper cheerily, pointing to the tents. ' No, he's not, Sarge! Really! ' Perkins defended.
1. Sir, I've shot a frog

**For Your Reference, Our Characters:**

**Major Richard Sharpe:** Gritty, pretty, and not very witty.

**Sergeant Patrick Harper:** Irish, but otherwise very nice.

**Rifleman Benjamin Perkins:** A Teenager.

**Rifleman We-Don't-Know Harris:** Scholarly perma-squinting gingernut.

**Rifleman Francis Cooper:** Nothing in particular.

**Rifleman Daniel Hagman:** Musical, sharp-shooting old coot.

**General Jean-Paul Evilfrog:** Murderous, Sharpe-shooting old bastard.

**Lady Marie–Susan:** Sharpe's gratuitous love interest.

**Lieutenants Pringles, Walkers and McVitie**: Elitist Officer Sods (Standard Issue)

In the interests of Sharpening(hah!) my parody-writing skills, THIS is an affectionate piece of nonsense, riddled with grievous formatting errors (I apologise) in which our Grittier-Than-A-Mugful-Of-Army-Tea hero, Sharpe, must survive one episode equipped with ONLY the following five phrases:

Bastard!

Yes (Sir)

I love you

Yorkshire pudding/tea

Fire!

**Sharpe's Parody**

The scene is early one morning, some place somewhere in some European country. Nobody knows where.

The viewers don't give a damn because all they want to do is dribble over Sharpe, the writers don't give a damn because all they want to do is write about some of the _weirdest _characters frankly ever created, and Sharpe gives even less of a damn because all he wants to do is glower, shag and/or shoot people.

'I've shot a frog, sir!' Harris cried, head and shoulders popping up out of the long grass like a demented marigold.

'Bastard?' enquired Sharpe, grimacing for no particular reason.

'No, Sir. Unfortunately I meant an _actual_ frog. I fell in the, um, pond…'

Harris sadly picked the tiny green corpse up.

Although the doctors didn't yet have a name for the condition that caused him to blunder about the Spanish countryside with all the grace of a runaway steamroller, there was no doubt it was a very real mixed blessing. On one hand, Harris was useful against enemy soldiers (they prodded him in the general direction, and he immediately took five or six out just by staggering ontop of them.).

On the other hand, it gave him a tendency to fall into just about every hole, hill or body of water they came across - Perkins had lost count of the number of times he'd had to fish him out of the laundry boil-wash, orange and steaming like an undercooked koi carp.

No-one was quite sure how Harris had managed in the pre-army days, when everyone lived in the Real World. He hadn't told anyone as such, but he was suspected of coming from a rather seedy affair that started with enrolling as a Private Tutor to the vicar's daughter pay off his debts, and ended with the vicar having him arrested. Apparently, the things he'd been caught teaching his Pupil across a large school-desk in the classroom had almost certainly not beenon the Curriculum.

'Sunshine dust and leprechauns, Sor,' Harper said contentedly, beginning the sentence in his usual cheery manner, 'But Oi think it's safe to make camp around here– how's about we finish this Recce patrol and report back?'

Sharpe nodded, standing up out of the long grass.

'Yorkshire tea,' he said.

'Moonlight and sparkles, yes Sor! Oi'll make ye some once we make camp…'


	2. Taking Pot Shots at Squirrels

'Fairy footsteps and babies bottoms, Sor, but Wellington wants to see yez,' Harpur saluted, calling Sharpe away from the newly-made campfire. Not that Sharpe's personal comfort mattered, seeing as he normally felt no temperature, pain, emotion, or feeling of any sort except possibly bestial lust. The Sharpe Fangirls hope.

Sharpe entered the Duke of Wellington's tent. There was a pair of muddy Wellingtons outside the tent, because there just _had_ to be.

'Sharpe! Damn! Bugger, and blast! Bloody well bugger and damned, the frog bastard!' Wellington barked, wagging a be-gloved finger across the various maps, charts and lottery tickets on the desk.

Major Hogan joined in, albeit in a more dazed and red-nosed manner. He was currently undergoing treatment for a chronic snuff-powder addiction, and the best substitute they could come up with to wean him off was Vicks Vapo-Rub.

'Major Sharpe, dammit. Blow and bugger, bastard, damned well damn – eh?'

'Sir?' Sharpe enquired, deeply confused.

'New idea, Sharpe!' Wellington waggled his index finger again, ' I'm just going to call you into my tent to swear at you, in future, seeing as I've realised there's no point in giving you instructions, since a) you never do as I say anyway and b) none of the viewers are listening to what I'm saying, because they're too busy admiring your taut bottom. Just clear off into the countryside with those maniacs in green jumpers for a few weeks, blow something French up, rescue some woman and make a bad leader see the error of his ways, and, oh, you know the drill by now – just generally save the world.'

'Yes, Sir,' Sharpe grinned, saluting.

And so, they marched.

'That wuz a fine tune ye just sung us, Dan, but Oi've got a request. Do ye know 'O, the Twisted Shamrock Tastes Nice with Fried Onions'?'

'Surely - _that_ be a good tune,' Hagman answered Harper, crumblier and more rustic than a slab of Cheshire cheese. He opened his mouth to start on the 'O'.

'OOOOOOOo –glmmph!'

'Marshmallows and Mother Hens, that's _much _better. Thought' we'd never get 'im tae shut up!' Harper said, whistling through his teeth as he knocked Hagman to the rocky ground, and knelt on the flaky Rifleman's head as he hammered the large cork into place.

'Careful, Pat, you'll knock 'is teeth out!'

'Oh, fiddle-faddle, if I do, we'll just sell them to a dentist, apologise, and make Dan some nice porridge'

'Sarge, I hate to ask,' Harris paused, 'but is it totally necessary to hammer a cork up each of his nostrils as well? Won't that, well…kill him?'

Harper rolled his eyes.

'Foine, but doan't blame _me_ when he starts breathin' and walkin' about and singin' again!'

Harris wavered.

'Well…I suppose if I _do_ have to hear 'What I Did To A Fine Young Maiden With Four Ribbons And A Feather One Fair Morning In May' again, I'm going to go clinically insane, but still…'

Meanwhile, Sharpe had marched on ahead, and was using his periscope (his first choice, the telescope, was being mended) to scout ahead for French soldiers. Although it was no good for seeing to far-away plains, it was useful for seeing what was happening at the tops of cliffs and similar.

Back at the ranch, Harper was reminding everyone of how the sun shone out of Sharpe's various orifices and how any human being in their right mind would want to make passionate love to him on a bed of roses.

'At least, Oi know Oi do,' he said faithfully, eyes shining, 'He picked up this regiment, roight when the Chosen Men needed him most. All of us wuz in the gutter,' he said meaningfully, 'but _one_ of us wuz lookin' at the stars…'

'Yeah,' agreed Cooper, 'he was probl'y wonderin' where his roof had gone'.

Laughter all round, except for Hagman, who'd spat out the cork in disgust and was sitting a little way off, moodily taking pot shots at squirrels. Seeing as he'd spent about forty years of his life becoming a crack shot, the ground all around him was a sea of twitching

furry bodies which squeaked pitifully and writhed in their death throes.

And Sharpe caught sight of something upon the clifftop.


	3. Tis just a scratch!

It was a pretty, bosomy, upper-class lady being roughly manhandled by ten leering French soldiers. Of course it was!

Because it wouldn't be an episode of 'Sharpe' unless a minimum of 5 women succumbed to the grizzly charms of our battered hero, or someone's wife popped up with a lot of barely disguised references to pricks and shagging, or the 95th Rifles going out 'hoorin'. Or even, failing that, an amusing imagined sub-plot of slash entitled 'It's More Fun If Everyone's Gay!'

However, in the interests of writing a decent parody, none of this is going to happen.

The amusing bonus effect of this is, by halfway through the story, everyone will be so murderously frustrated that the only thing with breasts it would be safe to let them near would be a dinnertime chicken (and even that would be dubious, depending on how imaginative the Rifleman in question could be).

'Eek. Eek eek eek. Unhand me, I'm the Comte De Fromage's wife!' she screamed, her two brain cells clearly failing to inform her that a bunch of under-sexed French soldiers were not about to stop molesting her _just because she told them to._

'Fire!' hollered Sharpe, charging in with his sword drawn, and flanked by the rest of the yelling Rifleman, looking murderous in an ever-so-faintly-attractive manner. Six shots instantly rang out, snapping like a homicide's Christmas cracker. In the brief skirmish that ensued, the Frenchman flailed defencelessly.

They twisted horribly to the ground, bleeding, although it doesn't matter, because there was no chance of it being the equally-comradely, just-as-much-beloved _French version_ of the Chosen Men that they'd just killed without a thought. Why? Because the French were the baddies. Duh.

Hagman and Cooper stood up out of the shrubbery, jaws set grimly. Everyone surveyed the scene impassively, but something didn't really feel right. Cooper broke the silence.

'Oh shit, I know what we did wrong'

'What?'

'We shot the woman by mistake'

There was a nasty silence, as everyone turned round, and was met by the sight of the Comtessa De Fromage, hacked gorily to bits and shot five times in the head, and bubbling nastily away in a pool of her own blood.

There was a long pause.

'Well,' Harris made some attempt at comforting the fretting Chosen Men, 'by the law of averages, she probably wasn't that important. There's lots of bosomy ladies about. I'm sure if we hunted about a bit and maybe checked up trees and in caves, we'd find lots scattered around…'

'Yorkshire _pudding!_ Yes, _bastards!_' Sharpe bawled madly at them, spit flying heroically, 'Bastards! Bastards! Oooohh…Yorkshire pudding, y'bastards…!' And he shouted at them in this vein until they all formed up in ranks again, and continued on their way, heads hanging in shame. Sharpe did this because shouting at things was what he generally did whenever he disliked something, and yet wasn't allowed to kill it.

They jogged down the cliffside, and continued on their way.

'Ooh, I don't be as spry as I once were…' Hagman grinned, shunting his Zimmer frame downhill.

Fortunately, Harris was right.

And this was particularly fortunate, because the universe would probably have exploded if he hadn't been. Harris knew _everything_ – although not why, despite the bosomy ladies having money to burn, they couldn't afford to buy themselves enough dressmaking material to ensure their ya-yas didn't make a bid for freedom out of the top of their dress. _Nobody _knew that.

They hadn't gone far before they came across another evil gang of French baddies manhandling a Bosomy Lady, whilst their leader sat by on a magnificent dappled cavalry horse, ribbiting and croaking with mirth.

'Fire!' shouted Sharpe, and they shot most of the soldiers. As they dropped down to the ground, they shoved an enthusiastic Harris in. They watched, cringing, as he laid into the French soldiers like a toad from a catapult, making the kind of accompanying facial expressions more usually entitled 'It's Caught In My Flies!'. And then they all came charging in, decimating the remainder of the French soldiers, and Sharpe sweatily wrestling their leader to the ground with a flexing of his manly muscles.

Sharpe held him in an armlock, pistol to his head.

'Y'bastard,' he grimaced menacingly, ' Yes, y'bastard'

He grasped the Frenchman's neck tighter, making the officer (who was, incidentally, not at all good-looking, thereby making Sharpe look even more of a handsome goodie next to him) choke and gasp.

'Bastard!' he snarled, jabbing the gun at the Frenchman's scalp. Harper bent hurriedly down in front of the Officer, pleading with his delectably Irish puppy-eyes.

'He'll do it, Sor! He really will blow yer brains out if ye don't tell us the answer!'

'Wait!' the Frenchman struggled, 'You've forgotten to actually ask me a questio….yaaargh!' he screamed as Sharpe remorselessly pulled the trigger.

'He did 'av a point, Sir,' Cooper pointed out tactfully, scraping bits of brain off of his shins, 'It is sort of fair that you arsk 'im a question _before _you shoot him for not answering it'

'Bastard,' Sharpe glowered mercilessly, '_Bastard_'

'Here, don't yez be questioning Major Sharpe's orders! He's got enough tae worry about without lipfrom the likes of yez,' Pat Harper said sternly to Cooper, turning to try and find out where Bosomy Lady No. 2 had run off to, 'Least none of us was wounded'

Suddenly, Perkins pointed at Harper.

'Oh my God, Sarge, _your leg just fell off_!' Perkins screamed girlishly, shocked.

'Boobah! And oi hadn't even noticed! 'Tis nothin', lad – whoi, over t'rainbow and back home in Donegal, it used tae happen tae me everyday!' Harper jollied, hopping merrily along behind Sharpe.

'Yes!' Sharpe exclaimed with concern. He pointed at Harper's arm, which had just that moment dropped off at the shoulder.

'Oh Sor, it's just a scratch,' Harper smiled, and waved calmly with his one remaining hand, 'Look, if ye're _really _worried, Oi'll stick moi limbs in moi haversack and take them back home, an' moi wife Ramona'll sew them back on again, how's about that?'

Good old Pat. Good old '_It'll take 14 cobras and an A-bomb to bring me down, so it will!_' Pat.

'I say,' said Harris, 'isn't it about time we headed back to camp? Major Sharpe's gone at least three days without being shouted at by some knob of an Officer for something that he didn't do'

'Jesus wept! We can't have that!' Harper exclaimed, rounding up the latest Bosomy Lady. Sharpe took her by the arm and looked deep into her eyes, whereupon she was so lost for words that she fainted clean away and had to be carried heroically back to camp by Sharpe.

'Permission to warble, Hagman,' Sergeant Harper smiled, suddenly feeling terribly charitable.

'Oo-ar, yes sir!'

'Karma Police

Give it all I've gots,

But it's still the same…

This is what you'll get,

If you m…' Hagman began, off-key and plaintive, yet curiously absorbing.

'Oh, sing somet'in' wit' a liddle more _bounce_, will yez?'

'Sticky hair, sticky hips

Stubble on my sticky lips,

Michael, you're the only one I'd ever want,

Only one I'd ever want,

Only one I'd ever want,

So come and dance with me Michael,

Come and dance with me Mi…'

'Bouncier!'

'I believe in a thing called love!

Just listen to the rhythm of my heart!

If there's a chance we can make it now,

We'll be rockin' 'til the sun goes down..!'

'_That's _better!'

Perkins was having a crisis.

Every man within a hundred mile radius got pissed, snorted white powder, smoked, made inordinate amounts of noise, swore like a sailor, and slept with anything that moved. _What was a teenager to do?_ All available routes of traditional rebellion had been firmly slammed upon his skinny nose!

Still, a teenager had to try.

Step One, he thought, swapping his green jacket for a leather one with an Iron Maiden logo on the back. Like most people who wore one, he had no idea what it meant - but it looked very offensive, that was the main thing.

Major Hogan pushed open the tent-flap of Wellington's tent, falling over another pair of pink, muddy Wellies on the way.

'Yes?' Wellington looked up, 'Anything new to report on – oh, yes, Hogan be a dear and pass me those Wellies, they're my wife's…she's been looking for them…'

'Well, Sir,' Hogan sneezed, eyes streaming as he popped another Vicks, 'Major Sharpe's back again'

'Already!'

'Yes, already, Sir. He's brought some woman back with him, though'

'Well, dammit, Hogan, don't just stand there! Go out and tell him to find some secret clues to solve or some stolen property to return or something. We can't have him sitting about idle – it's at least a week before the next attack on the French is planned for, and he'll damn well pick a fight with anything that moves if he gets kranky!'


	4. Die, Sharpie, Die

Meanwhile, Sharpe and the chosen Men were finding out who the hell this Lady they'd brought back was.

'My name is…_Marie-Susan_'

'I love you,' Sharpe said simply.

'That's very forward of you!'

'Oh don't worry, that's just his way of saying 'hello' to anything wearing a dress,' Harper neatly fielded the comment with a calm smile.

'What, like Harris?' Perkins smirked nastily.

'I was inebriated! And anyway, Harper did it too!'

'Shut it! Ramona can hear yez!' Patrick blushed.

Everyone pointedly looked the other way as Sharpe stuttered and looked deeply into her impossibly large blue eyes, as lovesick as an armful of Cupids.

"I…I love you…'

'I know, Sor,' Harper muttered wistfully. Ramona stuck the needle in pointedly from her position, sewing the Sergeant's leg back on.

Sharpe, as docile as a puppy now that he was faced with a problem he couldn't a) shout at b) shoot, looked down at the ground feebly, and staggered off in a dazed fashion.

'Penguins and pink hearts, Oi think he likes yez!' Harper told Marie-Susan cheerfully, and hobbled off after Sharpe, testing out his newly-sewn leg.

The Chosen Men resumed their normal activities of rifle-polishing, tea-making and button-sewing (and, in Perkins' case, attempting to piece his own ear with a piece of bent wire). Perkins, eyes drifting across to the Lady Marie-Susan for no real reason, noticed a curious thing around the region of her dress-top.

'Dan,' he whispered, 'Dan, look at that! Look, what is it!' he pointed.

Hagman gave him an extremely funny look.

'_How_ old is you, agin? I thought we'd explained ab't all that…?'

Perkins rolled his eyes.

'No, not _those,_ I meant those funny markings...it looks like writing, or a tattoo of some sort…'

Hagman squinted, trying to get a closer look. There certainly were some very strange hand-writing looking marks just visible across her bosom.

Unfortunately, a spanner in the works was on its way, in the form of three Lieutenants who'd been watching the Chosen Men with a telescope from a distant clump of bushes for the past hour, in the hopes that they'd do something illegal so they could execute them, which would teach them be led about by an Officer who'd come up from the ranks, dammit.

'Hah! I saw that man distinctly _eyeballing_ the young lady!' shouted Lieutenant Pringles, storming out from the bushes he'd been hiding behind with fellow Lieutenants Walkers and McVitie.

'What!' Hagman mumbled, confused as hell.

'Admit it! You were eyeing up this young lady, weren't you?'

'Eh?'

'Oh, don't feign ignorance with me, man – I can see the sinful thoughts in your eyes'

'Really?' Let me see,' Harris said, staring hard into Dan's eyes out of sheer curiosity.

'You see it!'

'No. Just cataracts'

'No matter! This man is to be court-marshalled on a charge of 'eyeballing'!'

'Hey!' protested Cooper, 'it's not a crime to be just lookin' in the direction of a young lady!'

'Yeah,' Perkins, who sometimes got carried away, piped up scrawnily, 'eyeballing isn't half as bad a sin as buggering!'

There was a shocked pause.

'P'rkins, y'stupid little _sod_…' Hagman gumbled out of the corner of his mouth.

'You, boy, will join your lecherous scruffbag of a friend in the court-marshalling, for _swearing in front of a lady_. Disorderly conduct!'

'Ere,' Cooper protested, 'that's not fair!'

'It is if you're in the 95th Rifles. Hadn't you noticed that the entire army and all its officers are out to get you?'

Cooper rolled his eyes, 'Yeah, sir, the _French _army is, on account of us fightin' a war with the French'

'No, twat, I meant the English. We _hate_ the 95th Rifles so much we even made pin badges with 'Die, Sharpie, Die' written on them!'

'Why?'

'Oh, so now we need a _reason_? You're court-marshalled too, by the way. And tell Sergeant Harper he's court-marshalled as well, if you see him'

'_Why!'_

'Um…for being Irish'.

Lieutenant Pringles turned to walk away; a satisfied smile pasted on his mug, and was confronted by the peaceably-standing form of Harris.

'You've just court-marshalled the entire 95th Rifles, Sir, except for me'

'Hah! What're you going to do about it, then?' Lieutenant McVities said, blowing a provocative raspberry.

'Sod all, Sir, because I don't want to be court-marshalled too'

'Tough titty. That's a non-regulation hair colour you have there. I really do think you should be thrown in gaol and then publicly executed for it. That'llteach you not to strut about like a fucking satsuma'.

Perkins whimpered fearfully into Hagman's shoulder.

'Are we all going to die?'

'Birdbaths and bunnyrabbits,' Harpur exclaimed,' Oi haven't had so mach fun since the entire Regiment came down with cholera!'

'Speak for yourself,' Cooper muttered, slumped in the opposite corner of the filthy gaol cell and attempting to bite off his handcuffs. It was dark and gloomy in the cell, not to mention achingly cold and miserable.

'This is really shit,' Perkins muttered 'none of us have done anything wrong. I mean, ok, so they pay us to mercilessly slaughter huge numbers of people every day – _but_ we still wouldn't really hurt a fly'. He attempted to cuddle up in the corner with Hagman, but gave up when he realised there was approximately as much warmth in the older Rifleman's toothpicky frame as there was in a large tray of icecubes.

'Unless it was a French fly,' Harris quipped.

'Hah, yes, good one, _Marmaduke'_

'No, sorry. Not Marmaduke. Guess again'

Due to Harris' irrational secrecy about his first name, the rest of the 95th Rifles had employed a strategy to find it out (reasoning that if it was a secret, it had to be embarrassing), and then find a megaphone and shout it from the top of the nearest hill.

They would call him whatever names came to mind at random, in the hope that he'd be caught off guard and answer to one of them.

Perkins reckoned that 'Theodore' had made his ears prick up, but Cooper felt 'Zebedee' had been a better success.

'Roight. Well. We've all been sentenced to death, so we're all going to be swinging from the gallows like a row of pretty burdies tomorrow morning (Perkins burst into tears), so we moight as well confess to each other, seein' as we'll never get another chance to speak to a living soul again. Oi'm going to shuffle off this mortal coil with a clear conscience,' Harper beamed, apparently happier than a catnip-wrapped moggy, 'Oi'll go first – hey, Harris, guess what Oi've been usin' yer face-flannel for these past few mornings?'

'What?' Harris said disinterestedly, then thought back to the curious state of the washcloth, and sat up sharply, 'Oh, _Sarge_, no…!'

'That's roight,' Harper cackled, 'ye deserve it, ye show-offy booger! Oi never did like ye – and that's another thing, let me tell y…'

'Psst!'

'For Christ's sake, there's no need to rub it in!' Harris moaned.

'Shut it!' Cooper scrambled up to the one little window – and found himself nose-to-nose with none other than Major Richard Sharpe, come to heroically save the day!

Yorskire tea,' Sharpe grinned grimly, motioning for Cooper to stand back as he laid into the metal bars across the window with his sword-butt. For anyone else, all this would have done would be to mangle the sword-butt, and have whoever tried it stand there for an embarrassing half-hour whilst the prisoners' smiles slowly faded and the bars completely failed to break.

However, this was Major Richard Sharpe.

Naturally, the bars turned to dust as soon as he touched them, and the edges of the window crumbled away like a piece of Wensleydale cheese beneath his heroic, manly hands!

The grinning Riflemen scrambled out of the gap, and scooted off into the cover of the surrounding woods, Harris tripping over every blade of grass he came across.

'Yes, bastards,' Sharpe smiled as he threw down a black-and-white bundle.

'You've gone panda-hunting?'

Sharpe shook his head, quickly, motioning for the Riflemen for unwrap the bundle, as he pressed himself against a tree and snooked round it to keep a look-out. Hopefully, nobody would have noticed that the prisoners had escaped yet. Actually, why bother hoping? _He_ was Major Richard Sharpe, and if anything ever went wrong for him, it would always have been _someone else's fault._

'Perhaps it's a disguise,' Harris suggested brightly.

'Pandas?'

'Oooh, I quite fancy sittin' about up a tree for a few days. Very nice'

'No,' Perkins shook his head with a squincky grin, 'it's _much _more fun than that'

'Sor, are you serious?' Harper held up the garments, less sure.

'Yes,' Sharpe said, hoping they'd hurry up and put them on.

'I'm not certain that this will look very convincing,' Harris slipped the shapeless black garment on over his head with an air of resignation.

'Aye, let's just get on wit' it - Oi suggest we _do _Major Sharpe!' Pat Harper cried.

There was a confused pause.

'…A good deed!' Pat finished, sighing with relief as everyone started cheering. It had just _slipped out, _'and put on these nice disguises he's so koindly found for us'

'So,' Perkins made conversation as they added the white head-dresses, 'does anyone else think this is a ludicrous plot twist?'

'Well, it ain't half as bad as that episode wiv the Aztecs'

That's right. The Chosen Men were going to sneak about the countryside disguised as a small contingent of nuns.

'I'm a'roight as long as nobody gets a good look at me, up close'

'You mean generally, Sarge, or just in disguise?' Perkins said cheekily, and was promptly boxed round the headdress.

'Quite a'right,' Hagman was gumbling cheerfully, 'back 'ome, a lot of the Nuns had _fine_ beards. Could've done w'th a shave, most've them – 't'll just add to the disgise'

Perkins gave him a strange look.

You never really knew where you stood with the poachy Rifleman. One minute he seemed practically on the brink of death, hobbling about mumbling to himself, limbs carried like surplus baggage – and the next he was twanging perkily away at a fiddle and tirelessly flinging Perkins in the air with beaming, stringy good-naturedness (or at least an unwholesome interest in17-year old boys). Deceptive-like, it were.

'Sir, there's something you ought to know, before we set off,' Harris said to Sharpe.

'Yes?'

'Perkins says Lady Marie-Susan has got _handwriting_ on her. We thought it might have been some sort of Secret Clue'.

'Yorkshire pudding,' Sharpe nodded seriously, and they set off like a row of large penguins in the direction of Lady Marie-Susan's tent, trying to look pious.


	5. And a horse sat on his head

'Avert yer eyes, lad! 'Tisn't becoming of a lady t'be ogled'

'Eff off, Granddad, I'm _trying_…' Perkins snapped miserably.

'This isn't fair – how come Harris is allowed to look?'

'Because it's French handwriting, and only _he_ c'n read it, ye mucky-minded boogers! Look, _we'll_ go and stand outside, and do some prayin' and be Nun-like,' Harper ushered them out of the tent before the situation got beyond salvaging.

It was a given of the script that there had to be at least one instance of gratuitous toplessness per episode (although bare-chested soldiers being flogged didn't count. It had to be toplessness of mass appeal, as opposed to toplessness of appeal to the Sado-Masochistic fetish community). Either Sharpe had to strip to the waist, rubbing his manly chest and dousing it in crystal-cold water, or some other random wench had to unlace her dress-front for the mass delectation of all present.

Evidently, the script-writers have been running low on convincing reasons to get naked, thought Harris, not minding in the slightest.

'Yes?' Sharpe asked, expecting an explanation from the now-topless Marie-Susan. Harris busied himself with a notepad and pen, making close examination of the tattooed-on handwriting.

Marie Susan sighed dramatically, her violet eyes and Rapunzel-length blonde hair coupling with her stunningly attractive face speaking of a 'poor mistreated wench'.

'General Jean-Paul Evilfrog forced me to become his lover, after he killed my husband, shot my grandmother, and kicked my puppy down the stairs (Sharpe reeled back in shock). Such is his arrogance, that he wrote his terrible boasts all over me, and then had them tattooed into my maidenly curves! I escaped, and was finding my way to safety, when a horde of his evil French soldiers sprang out of the bushes and attacked me – no doubt to bring me back to their terrible leader!' Marie-Susan swooned, staring deep into Sharpe's eyes as he took her by the hand.

He would have crushed her to his heroic chest in a manly embrace, but unfortunately Harris was in the way, kneeling and still busy scribbling a translation.

Harris stood up, and presented Sharpe with the notepad with a flourish

'Shall I read it out, Sir?'

'Yes'

'It reads:

'_Mwahaahahahaha, this is a note from the great General EvilFrog: General Evilfrog is very nasty and unpleasant and evil, and does all sorts of terrible things like leer at Bosomy Ladies and shoot English 'Rosbif' soldiers, and forget to take his shoes off at the door. Come and stop me – if you think you're hard enough. Mwahahahahaha!_

_P.S The English are going _down!' Harris finished, pale-skin warmed up like a freshly-cooked beetroot, 'Bloody hell, Sir, but it's very hot in here, don't you think?' he swallowed, casting his mind back to the territory to see if they might be crossing any large bodies of icy water on their way to find General Evilfrog.

Sharpe pointed to a small mark in the bottom right-hand corner of the message. It read 'PTO for Directions'.

'Yes,' Marie-Susan sighed, 'Directions to General Evilfrog's secret hideaway are on the back…' she said ruefully, dropping her dress completely and turning round, as Sharpe and Harris attempted to remain utterly businesslike and re-attach their lower jaws.

The sheer loveliness of the comely maiden's curvy figure was so apparent that it was a full twenty seconds of slack-jawed staring later that Harris realised he was holding the jar of ink upside-down, and had just poured it all down Major Sharpe's leg.

Thankfully, Sharpe was too distracted to notice.

-

The march to General Evilfrog's secret hideaway went as per usual, except of course they were all dressed as Nuns.

There had been no doubt that they _would _go and stop General Evilfrog, of course, because he was so evil that he just _had _to be stopped, and the 95th Rifles were _so_ heroic and _so _manly that nobody else who wasn't as heroic and manly as them could have done the job.

The sneaked into a side entrance, blessing the French soldier on guard duty – then whipped their rifles out of their enormous headdresses, and declared World War 0.

Everyone in the immediate area was shot, or trampled on by an extremely worked-up Harris, and everyone else who came near them was also bludgeoned, shot, and otherwise eliminated.

Sharpe led them all heroically, shooting three peasant grannies and a melon-seller in the courtyard of General Evilfrog's secret palace. He reasoned that if they were lurking in such an evil place, they too must be evil, and therefore it was ok to shoot them. He also called out to the other Riflemen to let all the mothers and children escape - and if there were any other women left, to only shoot the ugly ones. Because Sharpe had a very good sense of morals and right and wrong. Even if, on closer inspection, most of them held about as much water as a sieve. Anyway, the important thing was that it looked impressive and made him seem like a very manly hero indeed!

'Hurrah!' shouted all the Riflemen

'Hurrah!' shouted all the mothers and children

'Hurrah!' shouted all the pretty girls

'' ''shouted the 200 or so other innocent peasants, because they were all dead.

'Roight! Let's go find this General Evilfrog – cover Major Sharpe, lads,' Harper grizzled, stomping up a prospective flight of steps like bear with a sore head.

'So! You 'av come to keel me, Majour Sharpe?' came a voice from behind them, as a figure in a black silk cloak simultaneously held a gun to Sharpe's head and twirled his evil moustache.

If there had been a caption on the screen at that moment, it would have read 'uh-oh'.

Sharpe froze, and the Chosen Men stopped in their tracks. By all rights, they should have been fearing for the life if their beloved leader, However, since they knew there were four more episodes at least left in the series, and nobody'd watch it if the ruggedly handsome Sharpe wasn't in them, they took it as a cue to have a breather.

Cooper backed onto the nearest wall and started rolling himself a cigarette, whilst Harris took a book out of his pack and did a bit of light reading. Perkins and Hagman tucked themselves away together in a sunny corner to please any slash fiction shippers with curious tastes.

'Ey! Ey! Are not your men zupposed to be _fearing for your life_, Majour Sharpe?' General Evilfrog asked Sharpe, confused by the scene unfolding. The pantomime villain did not understand.

'Bastard,' said Sharpe so casually it was almost affectionate, and easily backflipped out of Evilfrog's grasp with a half-notch twist and triple somersault. Upon landing, he followed this up with an axe-kick and the Position of the Dragon, followed closely by a quadruple flying groin-dodge. Harper watched Sharpe appreciatively (now executing a semi-shank cripple-lock with extra crunchy knuckles upon the General). It was like poetry in motion!

After about twenty minutes of the General being beaten to a bloody pulp by Sharpe's dirrrrty street-fighting techniques, Sharpe decided to end the fight.

His Riflemen were so confident of his abilities that three of them had now fallen asleep and were snoozing gently in corners as the two combatants threw crockery, punches and live poultry roundabout.

'Yes, bastard,' said Sharpe heroically, decapitating the evil General, liberating his peasants (except for the ugly ones), saving mankind and sending the Frenchman's head flying three metres to the left, _with one single blow of his sword._

'Well done, Sor!' an adoring Harper clapped his appreciation from the sidelines.

'You'll be a wow with the slash fiction shippers too,' Perkins woke up and grinned cheekily at Harper, ' They c'n write about you and Major Sharpe, lying about in the sunshine and leering at each other as you polish your swords…'

'Perceptive little booger, ent yez?' Harpur said good-naturedly, bludgeoning him about the head with his rifle-butt. 'Buttercups and beanbags,' he added, noticing Sharpe was listening.

And with that, they made their way out of General Evilfrog's now not-so-evil secret hideout. The Chosen Men had saved the day once again! They picked up their discarded nun's habits to return to the convent they'd been taken from, because Sharpe was very particular about moral actions like that.

'The Duke of Wellington's camp!' Harper said enthusiastically.

'No he's not, Sarge!' Perkins said defensively, 'I swear! Them pink wellies belonged to his wife, and the only person who does any lisping around here is, well…me. Oh, hang on, you meant it was time to go back to camp, didn't you…?'

They headed back, pausing only to make a quick snack of some rabbits they found on the way. Sharpe glowered at them, Cooper shot them, Harper smiled benignly at them, and Hagman and Perkins were put on cooking duty to make stew of them. Usually, Harris was better at cooking, but he was indisposed for the present, as he'd fallen flat on his face with more than usual gusto and managed to lodge his head down a rabbit hole. Everyone else was busy digging him free.

'Psst, Dan - you know how to cut up these rabbits properly?'

'Aye, that I do'

'How come?'

'I've done it wi' a sheep'

Perkins decided to let that one slide.

-

The Chosen Men made it back just in time to join in Wellington's latest attack against the French.

Not even an hour early or late, mind, _just exactly spot-on time._ They hurled themselves into the fray, certain that if they made enough ta-ra-ra boom di-ay and noise, then everyone would forget that they were all supposed to have been executed several days ago. Yelling noble battle-yells, them covered themselves in glory…and entrails.

Sharpe gave a furious battle cry.

'Yorkshire _pudden_!' he hollered throatily, and was immediately shot in the head by the very first French musket.

'Fire! Fire!' he cried, as cannonball after cannonball landed squarely upon his head,

and 13 French dragoons laid into his groin with their huge sabres.

'Who musked-proofed _him_?' Perkins wailed, one leg dragging behind him where he'd been hit already, 'How come he's so bloody indestructible!'

'Fire! Yorkshire Pudding! Fire!' bawled Sharpe, nearly out of his breeches…whoops, _breaches._ A hundred Frenchmen instantly gored him right through with their bayonets, and a horse sat on his head for good measure.

Despite all this, Sharpe failed to die.

He also failed to sustain any injuries except those that could be converted to proudly-flashed, manly battle-scars, when shirtless in later episodes. Hurrah! Hurrah for Sharpe! Hurrah for the Chosen Men! Come on, _cheer_, you little bleeder, damn you!

-

Seeing as it was near the end of the episode, everybody simultaneously decided it was time to bugger off into the surrounding town to spend the evening in the company of some merry but rather plain wenches who each thought they were being terribly original when they said 'My, what big rifles you all have!'.

At least Perkins was happy.

He'd paired off with a very dark-looking girl named Nola (she was a rocker with a nose-ring. She wore a two-way but Ben wasn't quite sure what that meant). Nola totally offended Hagman, the nearest thing anyone had to a father figure, so Perkins was pleased. It was good to be A Teenager and offend people, and take a little time off from saving the world.

High on this victory, Perkins spent some time the following morning, with Nola's help, sculpting a neon pink mohican. It was egg-white-spiked-up a foot high from his forehead to the nape of his neck. He reasoned that if the other soldiers didn't get him for looking stupid, the officers would get him for having non-regulation hair, and if _that _failed, with a bit of luck, a real punk would beat him to a bloody pulp for copy-catting.

'Oh, lad, tha'oughtn't t'have done that,' Hagman surprised him, mumbling up behind.

'Hah, offensive, is it!'

'No, lad,' Hagman smiled gently, 'tis cos thee can't get thy hat on thine 'ead'.

Major Hogan chose that precise moment to call for everyone to form ranks.

Everyone put their hat on and lined up.

'Oh, _shit…!_'

-

It was time to pack up camp and go.

'To Cadiz!' shouted Sharpe, waving his sword, a grim smile playing about his manly chops as he realised he'd gotten his words back.

'Hurrah!' shouted everyone, waving their firsts in the air in an equally manly fashion (even the women. Sharpe had this effect on people).

And so our intrepid heroes squared their shoulders and proceeded heroically into the middle distance. The paused on a convenient hilltop to silhouette themselves against the twilight sky, striking meaningful yet carefully in-character poses. Square of jaw and black of eye, they marched into the sunset, except for Harris, who paused to break his flat nose against a handy treestump.

'Dan?' said Cooper quietly, eyeballs swivelling upwards.

'Yus?'

'Why is your voice coming out of the sky?'

**THE END**

Quality? Tosh? Something else? A minefield of formatting errors (I mean, sorry, but my paragraphing and vital punctuation looked utterly perfect in Word, and yet now has more holes than a _swiss cheese._ Why is this?) It don't take a minute to leave a wee bit of feedback, Ladies and Gentlemen!


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